Join us @9pm for the iNv Podcast #4

ddra-

Join Rokis, eKComm, and myself on the forth podcast happening at 9pm EST.

Our special guest this week will be our team member Mikey

We'll be discussing AC clients, upcoming FN matches, as well as our beloved segment scrub of the week.

https://gaming.youtube.com/channel/UCeAqchvp7LTTdcYKNdxSKLw/live

4DChessGenius

Here's an idea for you guys. Take a UMM that you guys think may work in comp and give critiques and ideas on how it can be improved.

Flatlander

Whiplash27 wrote: »

Here's an idea for you guys. Take a UMM that you guys think may work in comp and give critiques and ideas on how it can be improved.

+1

4DChessGenius

Wrong thread. Delete

ddra-

That's a great idea Whiplash. We are looking to focus more on providing gameplay tips to the community via gameplay videos, and less on the drama that's been going around. We understand the comp community is a niche within the AAPG niche so speaking on topics that will target a broader audience seems like the way to go.

I feel our last podcast #4 was on the weaker side, and that's because we've been trying to focus more time on scrimming other teams and prepare for matches. For that reason we'll be changing our format from weekly to twice a month. Quality is what we are striving towards and want to make this podcast a long-term project rather than something that only ran for a month or two.

Topics that we want to discuss involve the following:

- Chats with our quality guests
- Pre-recorded gameplay videos that focus on tips and strategies for both casual and comp players
- Discuss upcoming league matches and show gameplay videos of recent noteworthy matches
- Discuss insightful forum topics/game updates
- Provide updates on our team and some personal tidbits
- We still want to keep a small portion of the podcast dedicated to drama and scrub of the week
- Whiplash's idea on discussing a UMM with comp potential

We are always welcome to ideas and have created a special forum space on our website for it. This ranges from UMM maps to look at, tipoffs on players, gameplay footage to analyze, etc. So far Doba is the only that has used it. Props to him!

The next podcast will live-stream on the 22nd of February

Saccho

The drama/"witchhunt" aspects don't really add much value IMO. If you want to grow competition, present the better sides, not the worse. "Drama" gets you community engagement, but it's the bad kind of engagement where people get riled. Check out the twitch chat logs or recent FraggedNation activity. The kinds of people that will want to join comp after seeing that aren't the kinds of people you want joining.

The guests are great. Positive discourse where different opinions are respectfully considered are really valuable. That's probably the highest value this kind of show can offer. Keep it positive and you're more likely to get high-profile people (or people from other communities == wider exposure for your views) wanting to come on.

"Scrub of the week" would have more value if, instead of trying to call out people you don't like, it was just the name of the gameplay review segment. Make it less "LOL so bad" and more "learn to play better" -- start by reviewing your own plays, why you made the wrong choice, what should've been done instead, etc to show the segment's not meant to tear somebody down but to build up game knowledge.

It's easy to joke about how bad someone is, anybody can do that. Your team's value is in bringing deeper insight and, hopefully, breaking it down so people can understand it. I heard a good analysis of what many Starcraft pros do wrong in interviews and you should consider the advice too when thinking about gameplay critique segments.

(Paraphrased) A lot of players go into interviews and say things like "Well, he screwed up his Reaper opening and so I just played standard and won." Don't do that, you're selling yourself short. Explain what 'standard' means, explain what you did, explain why you did it and what you knew. What you should say instead is something like this. "Well, I knew he lost a lot of resources with his Reaper misplay. To afford that military early on, he couldn't also afford to expand his economy. I knew I had an income advantage and wouldn't see another push for a few minutes while he recovered, so I expanded my economy with a second base to further capitalize on that edge. With the increased military production I could then afford, I slowly wore down his forces. I took that small advantage and slowly made it larger and larger." Now you're showing off how well you understand the game and educating the viewers on how to think.

Crushmaster

Good comment, Saccho. Agreed completely.

.dcG-Colts^

Players using something to gain advantage deserve to be outted by the community so everyone knows.

-=}WoLvErInE{=-

Great post Saccho.

Saccho

.dc-colts^ wrote: »

Players using something to gain advantage deserve to be outted by the community so everyone knows.

If the only show discussing competition has a segment about who from the community is 'using', why are people going to want to join? Nobody wants to play against that.

If there's evidence, take it to the league admins and handle it. You can have the information public or available-on-request without actively showing it off in a broadcast. It's an image management issue. I agree that anybody dirty should be kicked out and I'd love for a public database of who's been caught. But it's deeper than that.

Think of it like this. You've got some kid from a new clan interested in comp. He's seeing two choices on the show for how to get better:
1) Learn to aim, move, think, out-play. It's hard and these other teams have been doing it longer. It's hard to teach and to learn.
2) Download help. These players from other teams supposedly have and, even though they're getting accused, they still get to play or even win tournaments. It's "easy".

Giving it screen time creates false equivalence between the choices. It also makes it seem okay to call people out -- after all, here's this top team calling people out in the broadcast. All the comp players hate getting accused in public, but running content showing "comp guys use XYZ" makes it seem okay to do.

SSKnecabo

I'd actually love a format educating about cheese itself in general. So much misinformation about it in this community.

=IK=Doba=

SSKnecabo wrote: »

I'd actually love a format educating about cheese itself in general. So much misinformation about it in this community.

actually a great idea, a segment to teach admins what to actually look for not just the score

Saccho

SSKnecabo wrote: »

I'd actually love a format educating about cheese itself in general. So much misinformation about it in this community.

It's a good idea. Things I'd suggest:
- make it a separate program
- don't highlight "real" users, keep it abstract (no witch hunts)
- advertise it directly to admins (ACI, PB forums), not general public

Keep in mind that this has REALLY backfired on people in the past. Comby_McBeardz, for example, made this kind of demo video for a reddit gameserver community and ended up with "bad stuff" developers framing him multiple times over. He got a global EvenBalance ban for his trouble. It eventually got overturned, but still.

.dcG-Colts^

Saccho wrote: »

.dc-colts^ wrote: »

Players using something to gain advantage deserve to be outted by the community so everyone knows.

If the only show discussing competition has a segment about who from the community is 'using', why are people going to want to join? Nobody wants to play against that.

If there's evidence, take it to the league admins and handle it. You can have the information public or available-on-request without actively showing it off in a broadcast. It's an image management issue. I agree that anybody dirty should be kicked out and I'd love for a public database of who's been caught. But it's deeper than that.

Think of it like this. You've got some kid from a new clan interested in comp. He's seeing two choices on the show for how to get better:
1) Learn to aim, move, think, out-play. It's hard and these other teams have been doing it longer. It's hard to teach and to learn.
2) Download help. These players from other teams supposedly have and, even though they're getting accused, they still get to play or even win tournaments. It's "easy".

Giving it screen time creates false equivalence between the choices. It also makes it seem okay to call people out -- after all, here's this top team calling people out in the broadcast. All the comp players hate getting accused in public, but running content showing "comp guys use XYZ" makes it seem okay to do.

The problem was they're last podcast was unlike any of the previous it seemed to mostly focus on omni, scrubs, and players cheating. I think the issue here was what was in the podcast should've only been about 25% or less than the total podcast time. And running content proving someone is using something shows its not ok to do. Being ok with it would be keeping it privately. This will obviously change when a decent league is up and running and admins have control of stuff. Noobie the only admin doing anything at fragged nation does not even have power to over turn wins/losses. So getting a player banned is a long process and then they can find their way back even though everyone knows its them and FN takes 4 weeks to finally get rid of them for good aka blitz. The main concern here is the made the podcast too much about all this stuff rather than a small portion.

.dcG-Colts^

SSKnecabo wrote: »

I'd actually love a format educating about cheese itself in general. So much misinformation about it in this community.

Exactly. So many of these guys think oh hes not cheating hes only 12-8. But I have seen terrible players having an even worse score but are actually cheating. We even had one team come forward and defend a cheater till we proved/showed them they were wrong. That's the main issue here you keep it privately and the pub players or admins not in comp never find out. There is some players in this community that think every single top team is doing something. This will help educate them otherwise.

Saccho

It's content that's easy to produce. Analysis takes more time/effort and it sounds like they recognize that in going to the biweekly format.

It's really tough to maintain this kind of show. State of the Game was a Starcraft podcast with a slew of big names hosting and they'd struggle to fill time sometimes... and that's with constant pro matches, balance patches, shifting meta, etc. It's tough.

Actually, looking at their wiki page, ending with questions from the audience might be a good thing to try. Dunno if you'd get serious questions, might turn into a joke If you got real ones ("How do you respond to a FOG wall on Spring Street" or "What can you do to shift momentum in a pub if your team is turtling and getting rolled?" or "How do I teach my clan to make good calls?") it could work. If it's all trolling...

Saccho

Actually -- you guys are trying to start up that development team, right? Consider streaming some training sessions.

Bam4D

.dc-colts^ wrote: »

Players using something to gain advantage deserve to be outted by the community so everyone knows.

A wall of SHAME!! Joined ACI to see and it's behind another WALL

Shame is a deterrent in my book and limited accounts and names, burn them and done.

SSKnecabo

Saccho wrote: »

SSKnecabo wrote: »

I'd actually love a format educating about cheese itself in general. So much misinformation about it in this community.

It's a good idea. Things I'd suggest:
- make it a separate program
- don't highlight "real" users, keep it abstract (no witch hunts)
- advertise it directly to admins (ACI, PB forums), not general public

Keep in mind that this has REALLY backfired on people in the past. Comby_McBeardz, for example, made this kind of demo video for a reddit gameserver community and ended up with "bad stuff" developers framing him multiple times over. He got a global EvenBalance ban for his trouble. It eventually got overturned, but still.

Agree on all points. Would probably not hurt if it's the same guys doing it as a kind of secondary project because rating the questioned player's skill and analysing the gameplay is often useful/important to understand what's going on so they'd have that covered in their first project. I can also see gameplay from other games working well to explain the fundamentals.

4DChessGenius

Would be cool if you guys could get Big Tots on there.

=IK=Doba=

See no real input that Tots could offer lel ..might as well have Bam come on too